comment: Kanokon in disguise, no surprise coming from Xebec. The show was entertaining at least, but was also bit more dangerous..if you know what I mean. And again, it was Ayako Kawasumi as some cunning evilish woman. Oh and Kugimiya too, and Ami Koshimizu as dojikko maid which looks kinda weird. As said before, I do enjoy the show, in particular the banter going on between Flameheart and Hino.
comment: Okay show so far, but one problem I have with Omamori Himari is stereotype and predictability. No, I'm not talking about the cat allergy etc that some people are gloating about. A deity girl with sworn duty to protect a guy from some special descendant. Transferring to the same school. Jealous osana najimi. More supernatural beings got attracted to the main protagonist. It's just that...I'm just tired of the same old overused cliche, (pretty much like how I find many of recent jrpgs have unoriginal stories). But at least I still find the show enjoyable to watch. Or maybe I should say that Ami Koshimizu is the sole reason I kept on watching this, especially her old-style speech inherited from you-know-who.
comment: From the creator of Higurashi. Ookamikakushi has a really nice and clean art. Great OP song too. The plot was a bit slow, but was quite promising and intriguing nonetheless, like the mysterious air about the town Jouga and various legends it had (*cough*Hinamizawa*cough*), seeing how popular Hiro is in the class and people got attached to him easily, the stuff about Hassaku and how it affect Issei's behaviour (oh god, why oh why), and many more. Umineko is already a disappointment in term of art and character development, so hopefully Ookamikakushi could remedy my disappointment. ps: fffffuuuuu yaoi in my animu щ ﾟДﾟщ
Comment: Eww, censoring at its highest order. I accidentally stumbled upon the manga quite a long time before the anime was announced, and hence kinda looking forward to the anime. Then they show some rubbish censoring... Although it has nice animation and fighting scenes, I seriously wont bother watching the show, not until each episode's uncensored version come out. ps: Cecily and Lisa reunited again.
comment: K-ON+mild war+trumpet. The animation is indeed greatly resembled K-ON and there's a bit musical element involved too (trumpet rofl). To be honest I don't find the show that interesting even after 3 episodes, still don't know what I want to expect from the show. Something like Valkyria Chronicle's plot or something like K-ON leasure time? For sure, I want to see more of Takemikazuchi tank in action (my I can only think of Persona when I heard this name...lol). Oh, and need more Noel too.
At first I thought Yuu Kobayashi as Rio sounds weird as her voice is a bit too rough, but eventually I grew accustomed to her voice, in particular when she shouts :3 ps: band of trumpeters
comments: No wonder the sub for episode 1 took so long to be released, with that much dialogue involved in the opening episode, and the fact that it runs for 50 minutes doesn't help much either. The animation and character are simple though not that appealing. In the first glance, I thought the animation looks like shaft's, albeit it isn't. As said earlier, there are a bit too much talking scenes in this episode, good thing it's not that complicated and so far I could say that I'm quite interested with the story. And there's Yukari Tamura too :3 ps: awsm ED by Fairy Yui, as usual \o/
A few days ago I lurk utube's video on a whim, browsing through Split Infinity's channel to look for some interesting gameplay videos. It was then that I remembered all the stuff I favorited way back, especially that EPIC Tales of Vesperia battle Collection Rainbow MAD by ssrai (posted previously here). Only then I found that he posted another epic vesperia video, for the PS3 version.
[Tales of Vesperia] - Ultimaniax -
some awesome stuff shown in this video. What caught my attention the most is the new stuff introduced in the PS3 version of Vesperia, in particular that new character; the Yuri-Flynn duel Mystic Arte; and especially, Judith's NIBELUNG VALESTI (at 2:50)! Holy crap- Just wow, now I really feel like getting a ps3 myself just to play Tales of Vesperia again, although as far as I concern, the release date of ToV English version for PS3 has yet to be confirmed.
Another week filled with another game. This week I decided to replay Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope (though in between I played Bayonetta for a day lol), but with proper use of guide and walkthrough, aiming to get everything I missed during my first playthrough last March. Well, not quite everything because I still have a long way to go if I were to aim for complete Battle Throphies, which would be virtually impossible for me to get =_=
Nevertheless I manage to complete the main game after a week, and so far unlocked 9 more Achievements, including 3 hidden endings I missed in my first play, bringing my score for SO4 to 680G.
-Monster Master 30 - Collected 100% of all monster data. -Aspiring Architect 20 - Created 40% of all possible items. -Skilled Battler 10 - Obtained 40% of all battle trophies. -Potential Postman 20 - Completed 60% of all quests. -Creative Craftsman 20 - Created 60% of all possible items. -Ship Savant 20 - Collected 100% of all spaceship data. -Meracle's Ending 10 - Viewed Meracle's ending sequence. -Crowe's Ending 10 - Viewed Crowe's ending sequence. -Faize's Ending 10 - Viewed Faize's ending sequence.
Still a long way for full 1000G, but then I'm not really aiming for full score. My next aim is just to complete the quests, weapon data and full item creation, which means I need to clear the Seven Stars Cave and the Wondering Dungeon, beating Gabriel Celeste and Ethereal Queen several times for their feathers. And if possible, I'd like to complete the bunny race achievements too. The Battle Trophies achievement is a total pain in the arse to get, while playing on Universe and galaxy would probably consume even more time, so I'd put those on hold.
Some thoughts that appeared in my mind while replaying this game:
Lym is a complete waste of character slot. Combat-wise, she lacks supportive spells for a mage. That and her outrageous voice... She's only useful for her treasure sense and to some extent, Magic Ring charging.
I feel that Faize is too weak, physically. His replacement Arumat overpowered him in all aspects. Which made me wonder why would people want to keep him in the party, except for doing his battle trophies.
Sometimes I kept on thinking (imagining if you would) on what those guys on another Earth actually do when they "interrogate" Reimi lol
Reimi > Myuria >>>>>>>>>> Meracle = Sarah > Lyme. Well although Myuria has boobs, I just prefer Reimi for her...well everything suppose :3
The guy who did the camera angle sure is fishy, especially when the battle ends with Reimi or Myuria doing the final blow. You know what I mean ;p
It feel weird when the game try to crack a joke when Edge is a serious-type guy. It just doesn't feel that funny. Which is why I feel SO3>SO4.
Reimi's final Private Action >>>>>>> Her ending. period. But seriously Edge could be more romantic with his kiss, it lacks feeling :(
Arumat is total badass. Quoting from someone on gf boards; "He doesn't have a personality or anything so it's pretty hard to hate him. He rarely speaks and doesn't have any annoying mannerisms, so you don't despise him like many of the other characters. His voice actor is decently good. His combat moves are flashy, effective, and he wields the coolest weapon. And he replaces the worst party member. Nothing to criticize." Which I totally agree.
Edge is one of the worst main protagonist in jrpg history. Being an emo douche is one problem, he simply is too stupid and has uninteresting personality.
SO4 has one of the worst storytelling and voice acting among all Tri-Ace games. Seriously if I could change the plot, first thing first I would change Edge into someone with better personality (heck even Luke fon Fabre would looks better), remove Lymle, Bacchus, Sarah and Meracle alltogether and change into something like those in SO3 (Nel, Cliff, Maria etc). Seriously The characters in SO4 sucks, except maybe Reimi and Arumat. Even Welch is so friggin annoying, the Welch in previous SO series are better off replacing her.
It's surprising that this game is listed to be shipped within 5-15 days on Play-Asia despite being a relatively new game (though right now it's already listed to be shipped within 24 hours). As a result, it took me over a week to wait for this game to actually be shipped, and arrived at my home last Monday. And I finished the game a day later...lol. Nevertheless I still have a lot of things I have yet to do, like the Alfheim challenge (pretty much like the Secret Mission in DMC), Witches fragments collections, Hard/No Climax mode difficulty as well as some other minor achievements.
Bayonetta (ベヨネッタ) is an action game for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, directed by Devil May Cry and Viewtiful Joe creator Hideki Kamiya at Platinum Games in cooperation with publisher Sega. Set in a fictional city in Europe, the game centers on its eponymous character, Bayonetta, who uses pistols and magical attacks to defeat enemies. The game has five difficulty settings; its two easiest settings contain a game mode playable with only one button, similar to a mode used in Devil May Cry. Its developers designed its characters with modern style and fashion in mind, and composed for it a largely upbeat and feminine soundtrack.
Hm..I'd better made this one short. Coming from the developer of DMC, you can pretty much expect that Bayonetta shares much similarity with the former. Though I'd say Bayonetta (person) is far more powerful than Dante because she can do what Dante do right from the start (Air Hike anyone?), most of her purchasable skills are fairly cheap, and she can summon some nasty monsters and torture devices to..well, torture your enemies :) She can even put guns/claws on her toes and still able to shoot them at will, wtf?
Fun game with lots of features offered - lots of different combos; Witches Time to slow down time as you dodge attacks; Wicked Weave as finishing in combos, and summoning demons with her hairs to finish bosses off. Kinda funny to think that Bayonetta's clothes is made of her hair, and hence when she use Wicked Weave and summons demons (both which use her hairs).....you know what I mean lol. The gameplay probably shine the most during these bosses fight, in which more optional movements and tortures options become available. The wooden horse torture is nasty :3
Bayonetta video showing various aspects of the gameplay, against one of the higher ordered enemies. And the torture moved I lol'd the most when I play :3
Overall the game is fairly short (15 Chapters + Prologue/Epilogue, it shouldn't even took more than 10 hours to finish Normal mode) with noticeably lesser normal mob battle, making the bosses fight looks more significant. Despite the short time I had with the game, I thought Bayonetta is really fun to play, it offers a fresh take to action game with the likes of torture finishing move and Witches Time. Though if you want some seriousness in battle, then perhaps DMC is a better choice, but it still worth giving Bayonetta a shot. Getting Achievements in Bayonetta is easier than DMC too, although I have to say that the Alfheim challenge can be very frustrating for someone with average experience in action game like myself. Maybe I need to practice more, but for now I'd put this game on hold.
Anyway, Bayonetta remind me a little to the world of Umineko. Witches and humans exist in separate dimension (Purgatorio anyone?) and cannot interact unless they cross barrier, although witches and everything from their realm are still free to destroy the objects in human world. To some extent, Bayonetta (person) herself remind me to Beato, seeking her real identity after awakening from 500 years of slumber.
ps: If Kratos fight with brute force and Dante fights with style, then I’d say Bayonetta fights with some sort of elegance.
I'd usually post my season impression after 3 or 4 episodes (it's really not a good thing to judge a show solely by the first episode, as proven by e.g. Ga Rei Zero), but I'm planning to do my Winter 09/10 impression earlier because February is apprroaching and I'll probably be busy by then.
comments: a show with interesting concept of class ranking and summon battle to determine their learning environment, I like where the show is going as far as ep2 going. The humours and randomness can be funny too, I just hope the jokes isn't getting lame and repetitive like a certain Seitokai. Though the summon battle between them hasn't caught my interest much, yet. Despite the generic character design with cliche high school setting, overall I'm satisfied with the anime, so I'll probably still give it a go.
comment: Ok, somebody tell me what in the name of crap is this. No offense to those that like the show. I tried to watch the 2nd episode to see if my view on the show could be improved, but unfortunately it wasn't. Nonsensical panty flash everywhere while claiming to be an underwear advisor (maniac I would say). Thing's seems getting interesting later in the 3rd episode, but I don't think I could bother myself to watch this show anymore. I love boobs/certain kind of ecchi, but I guess this is just not the type that I like.
comment: Being a work from SHAFT, we know exactly what to expect: animation unique to theirs. Although by having them adapting a manga, I have a feeling that something is not going to be right (see Negima). Episode 1 start off with quite good but too lengthy scenes showing people arguing over the existence of Vampire before some of the characters made their appearance, which by itself is not significance at all as it tells nothing about some other major characters (eg Akira). I was led to think that Shaft was going for original story, but apparently it seems like they still stick with the manga plot with slight alterations, like the first 2 episodes. Not a bad thing to have, no?
comments: Thanks to TLR I had some spare time to read the novel a few weeks ago. Then comes the anime, and all I can say is...epicness. A MUST.WATCH for any Baccano fans. Aside of the story, Durarara shares much similarity with Baccano, from the introductory OP song (not as awsm as Gun n Rose, but still good) to the animation styles (both from Brain-Base after all). So if you love Baccano, there really is no reason why you shouldn't love Durarara. Awesome OP, promising story, great animation, inspiring dialogue. The ED might not fit everyone' taste though. With vast amount of characters in the series, Durarara tells the story about peoples in Ikebukuro, with each episode focusing on a few characters, with some of the scenes shown again from different character point of view. In episode 1, I would have preferred Black Raider vs the Thugs as they did in the novel, but vs the kidnappers in the anime is not bad either, plus they still include the flying head part. p/s: boobs
comment: Episode 1 got me lol pretty much. Cute anime with simple art, good for some laugh and relaxing moments. A bit strange but fun to watch, really. At least this looks much better than Kodomo no Jikan. Gainax sure did something different this time. ps: I wonder what's the age gap between the student-teacher in this show, 10 years is just not possible as claimed by Anzu's mother :3
verdict: 3.5/5 (watching)
that's it for part 1. In the end of the day, I probably going to watch only 2 or 3 of above per week (except Durarara which is a must) and leve the others until they finished airing. Oh how I love Honours :(
next to come: -Ladies vs Butlers -Omamori Himari -Ookamikakushi -Seikon no Qwaser -Sora no Woto
The Last Remnant (ラストレムナント) is a Japanese role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix. The game is directed at both Japanese and Western audiences and had a simultaneous release in Japan, North America and Europe, on November 20, 2008 for the Xbox 360. The Microsoft Windows version of the game was released on March 20, 2009 in PAL territories, March 24, 2009 in North America, and April 9, 2009 in Japan. A worldwide release on the Steam network occurred on April 9, 2009. A PlayStation 3 version of the game had been planned, but published reports speculate that it may be canceled due to the game's poor sales and mixed reception.
The game was directed by Hiroshi Takai and was the first Unreal Engine 3 game to be released by Square Enix. It is intended by Square Enix president Yōichi Wada to "become a cornerstone for [their] worldwide strategy". Art direction was overseen by chief artist Kimihiko Miyamae and art producer Yusuke Naora. The game's soundtrack was composed by Tsuyoshi Sekito.
The Last Remnant is the 3nd game I finished in this semester break, after Magna Carta 2 and Lost Odyssey, and also the longest time consumed to finish and get a full 1000G (~3 weeks). I wonder why my review comes not in order of games I played though. TLR is one of the first game I purchased (around December 2008) when I bought my 360 last year, yet it took me so long before I really started playing the game. As I said before, one reason is because before this I was playing on an old SDTV which really hurts my eyes, and as a consequence, it made me thought that the gameplay is crap. Things changed when I played it with HD monitor though. Overall I can say that I love the game very much and deserved a place in my top 10 jrpg played in the last decade.
Gameplay: 8.5/10 This is probably the most difficult thing to judge about TLR because what one see at the gameplay is not what other see. The game utilize what they call "Turn-based, command-based system using symbol encounters." In a simple term, battles were carried out by giving out a general command to a union (group consisted of units aka your characters) to attack the enemies, use skills, magic, healing or simply stand by. No exact command can be given so you can't force a character to use the skills that you want to use. The inability for players to choose exact skill is probably what made some players dislike the gameplay, because sometimes the tide of battle can turn horribly if they didn't carry out their specific command. Looks simple at first, but can be complicated if you factor things like character's stats and abilities, formations and leveling.
This video demonstrate how TLR battle system took place, though this is carried out at very high BR (132), fighting against one of the DLC boss of 360 version, the Lost Remnant.
One unique aspect of the game is that TLR is NOT GEARED TOWARD LEVELING. That is, there is no such thing as Level in TLR, but your whole party' "level" is indicated by "Battle Rank (BR)" which indicate you strong are your party relative to the enemies. You can't simply improve your character's stats by doing massive battles grind like you'd usually do in traditional rpg but rather, stats is gained by fighting against monsters with much higher Battle Rank. Which is why it is a good idea to AVOID fighting against any monsters in early-mid game and focus on a few huge grinding session against strong enemies to raise the party's stat. This aspect can also be another drawback for TLR, because you would not know about this BR shit unless you read proper guides. And hence, as some reviews said, TLR is "strictly for hardcore". Can't argue with that...
The game offer a degree of character customization, particularly in weapon/skill style. With this, he can be build into a gladiator, healer, mage, warrior and many more classes, although this is pretty much limited to himself only, as other heroes/leaders has fixed style/class. Other aspects of the gameplay includes morale system which effect various things in battle (eg damage/crit rate), and Remnants, which is part of the plot which allows certain characters to use super skills. At certain high BR, certain heroes/leaders can also learnt specific ultimate battle skills which is unique to weapons they equipped, called Weapon Art.
Graphic: 8.5/10
Another hard aspect to judge TLR upon. Coming from Square Enix, there's absolutely no doubt that the visual would be stunning with great design of the environment and effects in battle. Places like Vale of Gods and Crookfen looks so real that you wish you could actually stand there. However there are quite a noticeable graphical issue on the 360 version, in particular frame rate problem in battle whenever there are too many units on the screen. It really lags the battle when that happened, good thing this is not a real time action game like DMC or you'll rage to death over this problem. It seems like this problem fixed in the PC version though.
Story: 8/10
To some extent, the story are stereotypes to what you'd see in today's jrpg, but still refreshing with the plot they use. In the world, dwelled 4 race - mitra (human), qsiti (the midget), yama (big guys) and sovani (4-armed dude). There exist Remnant, mysterious artifacts which grants various powers but that itself disturbed the world's balance as there are many who went after the power. One day, the main hero' sister Irina was kidnapped by a mysterious group, which led the hero (Rush Sykes) to chase after her and eventually joined force with ruler of Athlum, David Nassau and his underlings as they seek the kidnapper, and learned more truth about Remnant. What I like about the plot is that it doesn't restrict itself with the oh-so lover's romance like many other rpg does, and the whole truth about remnant was only revealed in the very last moment, because to be honest I really wouldn't expect that it would go that way. In a way, the ending is also typical of what you see in other rpg, still.
Others: 9/10
Also depend on one's point of view. The game offers a lot of quests and guild task, some which almost certainly require you to face lengthy battle. Some of them can be annoying, but they're nothing compared to trying to grind rare items in this game for uber weapons/items, which is THE REAL annoying/tedious thing about TLR. The game itself doesn't take too long to complete - if you didn't aim to get a full 1000G. I remember almost finishing disc 1 in my first go (not doing much sidequests) after just one day. This contrast if you aimed the full 1000G, as I myself took almost 3 weeks to get every achievements, and half of those time was probably spent merely on grinding rare bosses/items.
Talk about the achievement, it took quite a lot of your time to get 1000/1000 for TLR. Three quarter of your TLR playing time will probably be spend doing the quest and completing the achievement, because not only you need to look for rare monsters, you also need to make sure that your party is strong enough to take down The Fallen and Absolute Conqueror, each contribute to a large portion of the achievements. Some of the achievements description however was too vague for players to understand, and hence the usage of guides is a must. I personally utilize every single resource I could get reach to complete the game: The TLR Wikia, Hero stats Database, Gamefaqs guide and boards, X360Achievement boards... everything except Brady's guide, which I never bought anyway. As such, how you enjoy the game depend on how much can you tolerate the battle system, graphic and quests in TLR.
TL;DR: overall The last Remnant can be a hit or miss - depend on what you're expecting, you can end up loving or hating the game. The combat system is unique with the introduction of units, unions and formations but sometimes the unreliability of the command can be frustrating. Graphic was superb but sometimes suffers from frame rate issues in battle. Nice plot, a good amount of sidequests offered and the game itself is relatively short, but gunning for full 1000G will require 200% more time than the game. And lastly, grinding for items can be tedious.
overall rating: 8.5/10. Would I recommend it? It's really hard to say, because some people might not find the gameplay appealing, but for sure, the game hits me on all cylinders.
There's still 3 more songs left without lyric, but I don't feel like updating their page at the moment, plus they're not my fav songs in Unveil :3
credit to Asriel J-lyric page for all the original japanese lyrics. I guess putting down the kanji and romaji is enough... cbf with english translation. Too bad I still can't find the lyrics for one of her recent 2009 single, Eien ni Sasageshi Itetsuki Nemuri.
p/s: apparently even the page itself is incomplete especially on the Singles list. Same goes with their latest single, Sequentia, despite the fact that the lyrics for both songs can be found everywhere.
After finishing Enchant Arm about 5 days ago, I began working on my 2nd playthrough of Eternal Sonata (aka Encore playthrough) in order to get the remaining 660 gamerscore which were attainable only on the 2nd playhrough. In a way, it's kinda funny that the 660G comprise of only 5 out of the total 22 achievements, implicating how significant the 2nd playthrough is in term of getting a major score for this game. And one of the achievement has a pretty odd score at 321 gamerscore (rebalanced by one other achievement at 81G), which correspond well with what the achievement is all about (collect all EZI items). EZI = 321.
I find getting full 1000G for Eternal Sonata isn't that hard, especially if you complete everything you need to do in my first playthrough (in particular, the Mysterious Unison secret Dungeon and all scores/achievements that we can get from there). Overall it took me about 3 days, or 20 hours in total to get the full 1000G, although I basically did not finish the Encore and stop the moment I get the final achievement, Score Piece Collector.
The battle itself isn't particularly hard either, although Encore is basically the "hard mode" of Eternal Sonata. The hard thing probably is that normal mobs can kill you in one or two hits if you didn't heal quickly, and many bosses (especially Captain Dolce) almost certainly will kill you quick enough. But just like normal mode, healing itself is not a problem as you can stock all sorts of Angel Plume/party heal 3000/6000 hp etc, now that you can set the full 50 items right from the start. And money isn't a problem either thanks to Beat's photo. And lastly, the fact that we can use Party level 6 from the start rebalanced the difficulty since you can spam Harmony Chains in every battle, and even more in boss fights.
As for character usage, one could argue that Salsa is better than Viola because che can rack up combo faster, and hence is more useful with party Level 6. But I don't find much difference between the two when they combo, both can accumulate similar amount of hits, although Salsa can hit easier. In the end of the day, I'd rather pick Viola (along with Allegretto and Falsetto) than Salsa because...well I would pick boobs any day over some rough lolis :3 Too bad if only Claves was available all the time in Encore, I would have pick her from level 50 onwards. Her design was really nice, and her stat growth at higher levels are insane.
- Collected 100% of all monster data.
Tales of Grace F
Warrior Orochi 3
FFXIII-2